Thank you to Val of More Than Burnt Toast for our October Barefoot Bloggers bonus recipe; Easy Cheese Danishes, yum! I love a good cheese Danish, Danishes in Denmark are especially good...but these that you can make at home with the ease of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry are quite delicious, and you don't need to dig out your passport. I changed up the recipe quite a bit...change number one was to skip the eggs in these. They were really not needed in my opinion, at first I was a little nervous and thought my cheese might spread a ton because I skipped the eggs, but it didn't. Whew. This recipe is supposed to make 8 Danishes but I ended up with quite a few more. I made two as suggested and they were huge, then I double folded a couple and made little Danish square parcels, and then with my second sheet of puff pastry I cut into 9 smaller Danishes.
Also, I just couldn't leave well enough alone and had in my mind an apple cinnamon topping, thank goodness it worked out, and ended up adding a lot of flavor.
To make the apple topping...I used two peeled, cored, diced apples, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Simmer for 10 minutes until thickened. This apple topping tasted great and went well with the cream cheese but it looked not so pretty. It actually looked like bacon to me. Ha! I personally loved these, but have a ton left and wish I would have halved the recipe. I did have one taste tester for the evening, my husband hates anything with cream cheese (yes, this includes cheesecake, and yes, he is crazy) and my two oldest sweeties weren't interested but my little goobie baby boy thought these Danishes were pretty fun...
Hi, Mom! Again with the camera? Ah well, these are interesting, I'm supposed to eat them, right? They are fun to poke. They make a big mess very quickly. Fun.
Hmmm...how many little flakey pieces are there on these?
Okay, you have a bite, open wide Mommy, I promise you will like them.
See, they are pretty good, I told you Mommy, babies always know best.
Okay, enough with the camera, I'm going to grab it, no more pictures!
Ina's Easy Cheese Danish
8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 extra large egg yolks, at room temperature (I skipped these)
2 T ricotta cheese
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 - 1 T grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
2 sheets (1 box) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash (skipped this egg too)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. (I did 375) Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Place the cream cheese & sugar in bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment and cream together on low speed until smooth. With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just combined. Don’t whip!
Unfold one sheet of pastry onto a lightly floured board and roll it slightly with a floured rolling pin until it’s a 10×10 inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters. Place a heaping tablespoon of cheese filling into the middle of each of the 4 squares. Brush the border of each pastry with egg wash and fold two opposite corners to the center, brushing and overlapping the corners of each pastry so they firmly stick together. Brush the top of the pastries with egg wash. Place the pastries on the prepared sheet pan. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry and refrigerate the filled Danish for 15 minutes.
Bake the puff pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. Serve warm.